Dead Man by Domino Finn

This is the first book in Finn's Black Magic Outlaw series.  I picked it up on the advice of a friend, and I'm glad I did.

Cisco Suarez is a necromancer that wakes up in a dumpster.  Shortly, he finds out that ten years of his life are missing and he's been presumed dead.  Who killed him and who woke him up??  What happened during the ten missing years?

OK so let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.  There was an annoying amount of predictability here.  In all fairness, it's to be expected being the first book in a series, but it still bothered me.  Most of the book I was busy trotting to keep up, and then I'd get bashed in the head with obviousness and want to smack somebody.  It's easily forgivable and not enough to keep me from trying the second book in the series.

The fun part of this book is that it's like a chase dream.  You know the one, where evil little Chinese dudes that you can't kill (Big Trouble in Little China!!!)  are chasing you and you can't kill them.  There's a bull chasing you that wants to taste your spleen.  You're running down railroad tracks and an evil Thomas the Tank Engine needs to flatten you.  That's what most of this book is.  It's action action action!  Short breath!  Action action action!  It makes it a quick and fun read, but at the same time it's a little exhausting.  Towards the second half of the book, I couldn't even enjoy the little breathing breaks because I knew something bad was about to go down.

When I first started reading, I was concerned that the amount of action would detract from the story line, but it really doesn't.  In the breathing time, you get just enough of the story to keep you interested and wanting more.  I still would prefer a better ration of breathing to action, but I'm not complaining.  I do hope it'll even out a little more as the series continues.

Though I had a few minor concerns, this was a pretty good read and I'm glad I picked it up.  There's plenty of action with a few nicely unique characters.  We have just the right amount of drama and back-stabbing.  I'm adding the next book in the series, Shadow Play, to my 'to order eventually' list.